Category Archives: Company and People Profiles

Former Co-Workers (and Current Couple) Open Decor and Audiovisual Company

Posted on October 6, 2010 | Leave a comment

(Originally published in BizBash Miami/South Florida Fall 2010 issue followed by the corresponding web site on 10.06.10)

Photo: Gary James for BizBash

Joel Carlough and Lauren Fine of decor and audiovisual company Sound, Fabric, and Light Productions are both business and life partners. The couple met in 2002 while working at Boca by Design, where Carlough focused on event logistics and setup, and Fine booked and designed events at the Boca Raton Resort and Club, which uses the firm as its in-house production company. During Carlough’s five-month tenure, the two fell in love and eventually had two sons.

After 11 years handling logistics, lighting design and installation, and on-site coordination for previous employers such as Ocean Reef Resort and Club in Key Largo, Carlough wanted to branch out on his own. “Over time throughout the industry, you always have conversations with coworkers about what it would take to launch a company, and having that conversation planted a seed,” he says. “The more I thought about it, it became clear that we could actually make this happen.” With the support of Fine, who was a stay-at-home mother at the time, they founded SFL in October 2009, specializing in exactly what the name implies: sound, fabric draping, and advanced lighting technologies.

Carlough’s specialty is logistics and lighting. Fine, who began her career as an interior designer, serves as managing partner and marketing manager, and assists Carlough and the company sales associate with event design.

“Some days [working and living together] is tough, but it’s very helpful that Joel has a very easygoing personality and never makes things more difficult than they need to be,” says Fine.

Since its inception, SFL has garnered big-name corporate clients including AT&T and the N.F.L. “Anytime you give a chance to a start-up company, you are taking a risk, no matter how well you know the person [behind it], and they absolutely came through,” says Patrick Gallagher, sales associate at So Cool Events, which hired SFL to provide theatrical, ambient, spot, and uplighting for multiple events for the Pro Bowl and Super Bowl coaches, players, and their families.

In March, SFL created a multicolored changing lighting scheme accompanied by industrial-style trusses and fabric sails for an AT&T product showcase for 800 people at the Fontainebleau hotel. “They have a great willingness to work with you from the beginning standpoint of working with budgets and coming up with a creative concept to making it all work,” says Santosh Nair, managing partner of SNR Meetings and Events, which hired SFL for the event. “With decor it’s hard to translate what your vision is for the space [to a subcontractor], and that experience became a lot easier by working with them.”

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Plant Designer Offers Living Centerpieces and Corporate Gifts

Posted on October 1, 2010 | Leave a comment

(Originally published in BizBash Miami/South Florida‘s Summer 2010 issue)

Photo: Courtesy of Plant the Future

Growing up in Argentina, being close to nature was always important to plant designer Paloma Teppa. After earning a degree in industrial engineering in her native country, she traveled to Italy to study fine art for four years before landing in Miami in 2001, where she worked as a freelance stylist for MTV Latin America. While there, she assisted a neighbor one day in his orchid shop and her desire to combine her design knowledge and love of nature took hold.

After six years working in her home, in January Teppa opened Plant the Future, where she designs custom plant and orchid arrangements for corporate offices and events. Teppa’s centerpieces are housed in clay pots of various sizes and glass bowls and orbs—depending on the design and size of the arrangement. The plants can last for months, even years, after an event and be used as gifts or raffle items as well. “If you get a plant at an event, you will be thinking about it and seeing the beauty from that event for a long time, and where you got it will stick in your mind,” Teppa says.

She often incorporates multiple elements in one arrangement, mixing succulents, bamboo, trees, orchids, and even live butterflies. Their cocoons reside inside the containers for 10 days until they hatch, then the insects stay with the arrangement for a day as they gain strength before flying off.

“Sometimes [clients] send me pictures of the space and the colors for design so I can determine what colored plant or orchid to use, the type of material, and which pot would be best,” Teppa says. For instance, she says an orchid bonsai would be a good fit for a dinner table rather than a traditional phalaenopsis orchid, which is much taller and could block conversation.

“If you give her the [event] guidelines and discuss your plan, I’m sure you won’t be disappointed,” says Ava Rado, founding executive director for the Center for Emerging Art. Teppa decorated the main entrance with a two-foot-tall orchid arrangement for its performing arts anniversary concert in 2008. “We communicated our needs, she told us what she could do and came through with flying colors.”

In April, a former MTV colleague hired Teppa for an artist showcase event at the Museum of Contemporary Art in North Miami. “She breaks the mold and is fearless,” says Ilana Sod, senior correspondent for public affairs at MTV Latin America. “She takes risks [with her designs] that I’ve never seen before.”

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Former High School Classmates Reunite to Form Event Planning Company

Posted on April 25, 2010 | Leave a comment

(Originally published in BizBash Miami/South Florida‘s Spring 2010 issue)

Photo: Alain Martinez Photography

High school classmates Andi Dyal and Jennifer Schwartz went their separate ways to attend college at New York University and University of Florida, respectively—but both became event planners. After stints working on projects such as Fashion Rocks, Condé Nast’s now-defunct annual fashion show and concert in New York, Dyal returned to Miami in 2006 to work as the Biltmore Hotel’s senior social events catering manager.

The two women reconnected in early 2008, when Schwartz, the former marketing and special event coordinator at Big Brothers Big Sisters of Greater Miami, began working with Dyal to plan a fund-raiser at the Coral Gables property. “When I was dealing with Andi—whom I didn’t realize I knew from school—I kept thinking she was very professional and got back to me really quickly,” Schwartz says. “It turns out she was thinking the same thing.”

Once they figured out that they knew each other (both had changed their surnames after getting married), they started talking about going into business together. In June 2008, the duo founded Anjé Soirees. “Each of us came to this company with different backgrounds in terms of event experiences, which forms this great dynamic,” Dyal says.

Through their new firm, the partners have organized monthly networking and cocktail parties for the Green Monkey Yoga Studio in Miami and coordinated Self magazine’s Yogapalooza with Crunch Fitness in Lummus Park in September. “I told [Andi] what she needed to do, and she created a point-by-point checklist of what I said and made sure it was done,” says Self promotion director Mark Harnett. “I only had to explain everything once, and she had great follow-up, with pictures for me to send to our clients. Anjé turned out to be a great one-stop-shop.”

Anjé’s nonprofit roster includes one of the city’s most exclusive charity galas of the year, the Vizcaya Museum and Gardens’ ball. The event committee contracted the team in 2008 and 2009 to help plan the black-tie dinner on the historic property for 300 donors.

“Their biggest strength has been their ability to work as a team and flesh out what needs to be done, then reduce it to paper so [the committee] knows what to do,” said Don Kress, president of the property’s fund-raising organization, the Vizcayans. “They put in really long hours, and their ability to negotiate contracts with the caterers, musicians, and all related groups for an event is excellent.”

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Graphic Designer Creates Budget-Conscious Custom Invitations

Posted on November 15, 2009 | Leave a comment

(Originally published in BizBash Florida‘s October 2009 issue)

After graduating from Savannah College of Art and Design in 2005, Eva Petersen moved to Miami, where she worked at various galleries in the Wynwood arts district and as an educator and research assistant at the Miami Art Museum, before serving as art director for Wynwood, the Art Magazine. During this time, Petersen created postcards and flyers for the galleries’ various events, which led to freelance work designing invitations for Miami’s Paper Fetish Design Studio. “While I was there, I had other projects, but I started turning down more and more to focus on invitation design, which was more rewarding to me,” Petersen says. She launched her own custom invitation company, Eva Petersen Design in January.

Petersen works one-on-one with clients to design graphics, hand-drawn illustrations, embellishments, and specialty packaging that fit the theme and tone of their events as well as their budgets. “I really enjoy working with people to show them how they can integrate art and design into their events. My best products come out when the client gives a lot of feedback and gets involved,” she says.

If planners aren’t sure of what they’re looking for, Petersen will present a menu of à la carte styles and details that they can mix and match to create invites, menus, or place cards. “Sometimes people [tell designers] they don’t have a budget because they don’t know what [number] to give, so the designer creates a proposal and they end up paying a lot more. This way the client knows exactly what they are getting and at what cost,” she says.

For the Y.M.C.A.’s fund-raising gala last October, Petersen created save-the-dates in a textured black box with a peacock feather on top and invites on pearlized champagne-colored paper with text in blue, green, and gold—the colors of the event’s decor. “She really pays a lot of attention to every detail,” says Jennifer Diliz, former director of annual giving and special events for the Y.M.C.A. of Greater Miami. “People called me after they got the invite to ask who designed it, because they wanted [to hire] her.”

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Miami Planner Opens Green-Focused Planning Firm

Posted on November 5, 2009 | Leave a comment

(Originally published in BizBash Florida‘s November/December 2009 issue)

Photo: Gary James for BizBash

After 13 years at Maritime Telecommunications Network, Jessica Welle left her post as the satellite communications company’s director of purchasing and logistics in January to pursue a career in the event business—an interest she’d cultivated working on parties for friends and family. A self-proclaimed “green freak,” Welle opened Green Planet Events in February. “I didn’t want to be the same event planner as everyone else [in the market], and [green events] was a good niche for me,” she says. “There is so much waste produced from events that this seemed like a natural way to help the planet.”

Welle acquired her own stock of renewable and sustainable items such as soy and beeswax candles and plates made of recycled glass. For events where disposable items are required, she uses plates, cups, and napkins made from biodegradable materials. To decorate an event space, she uses natural materials like flowers, leaves, and bamboo, LEDs, and linens made from natural fibers and colored with soy-based vegetable inks. One of her favorite tactics is reducing printed marketing materials. “There are so many electronic avenues now, why continue to give out paper?” she says.

“When I mentioned [doing a green event] to a few other places that were going to help me put it together, I basically got back blank stares,” says Brook Dorsch, owner of Dorsch Gallery, for whom Welle planned a 100-person reception in March. “Jessica made some really great suggestions and did things that were not just environmentally conscious but also aesthetically pleasing, which is important for us as an art gallery.” Welle used recyclable plates, cups, and napkins for food service, bamboo for decor accents—and a bamboo forest—and made use of the gallery’s fluorescent lighting in a way that generated less heat and used less energy.

“Going green doesn’t mean I’m going to do your decor with newspaper—it’s about reusing products, so I get to be more creative,” Welle says. “It’s challenging, but that’s what makes it fun.”

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